Not Enough
by Rude's Mom
Summary: Sequel to Exit Stage Left. Sasha heads to LA to help Angel and his team.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Not Enough

Author: Rude's Mom

Disclaimer: I didn't create the wonderful world of Buffy nor do I own any rights to it. I just sneak in to play every now and then.

Author's warnings: This is a sequel to Exit Stage Left. Buffy and the Scoobies are no longer a team. **If you are pro-Scooby and anti-Buffy turn back now. Seriously, you have been warned.** Spoilers for Not Fade Away.

* * *

**Los Angeles, May 2004**

The latest of a series unending waves of people flowed outwards from the baggage claim. A slight, dark-haired woman allowed herself to be swept along. She was carrying a small backpack and towing a small suitcase. As she exited the building, she headed towards the taxi stand. Twenty minutes later, she was in the backseat of cab on her way the old Hyperion Hotel.

The woman formerly known as Buffy closed her eyes as the vehicle began moving. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. The past few days had been among the worst of her life. She had been been played for a fool. She might have led the final battle at Sunnydale but she had never regained the trust and respect of her so-called friends. Her position on the reformed Council of Watchers had been nothing more than that of a convenient scapegoat. She didn't begrudge them having a difference of opinion or even outvoting her but decisions that she had never known about, nor would she have approved of, had been made in her name. That she would not, could not, forgive and so she had killed off Buffy. Let them find some other sucker to place the blame on she thought.

"Miss, are you sure this is the right place," the cabby's voice cut in. "I don't think this place is open."

Sasha opened her eyes. "It's the right place."

She quickly paid the man, gathered her things and exited the cab. As it drove off she began to walk towards the back of the building. The Hyperion looked as though it had been abandoned since Angel and his crew had taken over management of the local office of Wolfram and Hart. No matter, she thought, as she broke the lock on the back door. She would settle in and rest for now. She would be needed soon.

-BtVS-BtVS-

"I want you all to do something for me, for yourselves. Take the day off." Angel looked at his team as they gathered in Spike's apartment. Gunn, Wesley, Lorne, Illyria. He wondered briefly if any of them would still be alive in twenty-four hours. Except for the Old One, he rather doubted it.

"What?" Bugger, Spike thought. Angel has finally gone of the deep end.

"Uh, Angel, if we're planning to assassinate the power elite of the apocalypse tonight, shouldn't we be cowboying up," Gunn wanted to know.

"We'll be ready, but today, I want you guys to go out. Live. Do whatever you want."

-BtVS-BtVS-

She had been walking for hours to places that she had never seen before. They were important although why she couldn't say for certain. An fancy office building, a mansion, a busy campaign office, a dark street, a rainy alley. She opened front door the Hyperion and stepped into a desert.

It had been a long time since she had last visited this place of sand and stone.

"You think you know what is to come."

"Hello Tara," Sasha said softly as she turned towards the blonde witch. "Do you have anything less cryptic?"

The blonde witch smiled sadly. "You can't save them all. You have to choose."

"I'm not enough am I?"

Tara shook her head. "You were never meant to be. It's about free will. Everyone makes choices. Sometimes they make the right ones, sometimes they don't. Angel and his team chose to take the fight to the Black Thorn. The Scoobies chose to sit on the sidelines."

"What am I supposed to do? Who am I supposed to save?"

"I can't tell you."

"Let me guess," Sasha said somewhat bitterly. "Free will?"

Tara nodded. "You have to decide otherwise you are little more than a puppet."

"I've had enough of that lately," Sasha straightened up. "So, when does everything begin."

"Soon."

"Guess I had better wake up then."

-BtVS-BtVS-

In the end, it was surprisingly easy to choose. She knew that there would be no time for explanations or reunions. Her presence would be a a potentially fatal distraction to those that knew Buffy. Angel, Spike, and Wesley were on their own for now. The Old One that had consumed Winifred Burkle was considered to have power beyond that of a mere slayer. She too would be on her own. The final choice was between Lorne and Gunn. Lorne didn't have a reputation as a fighter, Gunn did. She just hoped that Angel knew what he was doing.

Sasha hopped off a bus just two blocks from Senator Brucker's campaign headquarters just before dark. She was only lightly armed, three stakes and a vial of holy water but she had taken on master vampires with less. She waited on a nearby corner for Gunn to arrive. In an effort to look less conspicuous, she kept up a quiet, if entirely fake conversation on her cellphone. She was early, much too early she thought as a hour passed. She was about ready to scream when she saw Gunn cross the street and head in Bruckner's office. At least she thought it was Gunn because how many bald, black guys were walking around L.A. with a freaking ax on their back? Snapping her phone shut, she quickly followed.

-BtVS-BtVS-

The battle was already on by the time she got there. She slid a stake into each hand and went to work. Gunn might have forced his way through a roomful a vampires on his way to the senator, and dusting more than along the way, but she made sure that not one was able to attack him from the rear. She dusted the last one as Gunn hurled his ax into the senator's forehead.

Gunn turned to fight his way back out. "What the hell," he muttered. It looked as if a vacuum bag had exploded. There was dust every where and not a vamp in sight. The only face that he could see belonged to a small brunette holding a pair of stakes which she quickly slipped back into her clothes. His first thought was that she might be a vampire was put to rest when he saw that one of the necklaces she wore had a small cross hanging from it.

"Hi," she said. "Thought you might need a hand, or a stake."

Angel had said that Buffy had refused to help. Had the Council had second thoughts after her death?

"You one of those Council chicks?"

She shook her head. "Hardly. I've been told I don't play well with others. Name's Sasha."

"Gunn. And thanks, there were a few more vamps than I was expecting."

"It's apocalypse season. Expect the unexpected." Sasha headed towards the door. "Come on, the main event is coming up."

He moved to follow her. "Why do you say that?"

"It's why I'm here. Angel has started something big and you are going to need all the help you can get."

"You know Angel?" He picked up the pace and began a fast jog. He didn't know if she would follow but he rather hoped she would. The girl was right, they were going to need all the help they could get.

Sasha easily matched his pace. "We have some history, some of it pretty messy. If we live through the night, I'll buy you a beer and tell you all about it."

"You gotta deal girl." He started running.


	2. Chapter 2

**Los Angeles, in an alley behind the Hyperion Hotel**

A hard and steady rain poured down as Angel ran down the alley, sword in hand. He reached the end, with its chain link fence. It looked as though he was the first to arrive. He hoped that he was not the only one to survive the first strikes against the Circle of the Black Thorn.

"Boo," Spike said as he stepped out from the shadows.

"Anyone else?" Angel asked.

"Not so far. You feel the heat?"

"It's coming."

"Finally got ourselves a decent brawl."

Both vampires turned as they heard the sound of running feet closing in on their location. Both gripped their weapons a bit tighter before relaxing as Gunn came into view.

"Damn! How did I know the fang boys would pull through?" Gunn panted from exertion.

"Because that's what they do," a female voice said somewhere behind him.

"What the...," Angel started at the familiar voice before Sasha came close enough to for him to see. "You're supposed to be dead."

"Supposed to be a lot of things I'm not," she replied. "You two should know better by now."

"So, she really does know you two losers," Gunn grinned. "She did some nice work at the Senator's office."

Spike walked over to her. "How do we know you're not the First?"

She gently cupped his face with her hands and drew his face down for a gentle kiss. A moment later she drove her knee into his balls.

"Argh!" Spike fell to the ground clutching himself. "What the hell was that for?"

"That was for not letting me know you were alive. Oh get up you big baby," she snorted. "It doesn't hurt _that_ much. I wouldn't damage you before an apocalypse."

"Sasha, you didn't mention your relationship with Spike was messy too," Gunn said.

"Your accident? Misdirection by the Council?" Angel asked.

"More like misdirection _of_ the Council. I got tired of Willow and company placing my name on their decisions, especially those decisions that they knew I wouldn't agree with. They didn't have any use for me other than a cross between a figurehead and a scapegoat so I 'killed off' Buffy."

"Sasha, are you saying that you killed the senior slayer," Gunn queried worriedly. He had thought he was bringing one of the good guys, or gals, to the party. Then again, Buffy ordered the Council not to help Angel so maybe he could could cut the girl some slack.

"No Charlie boy," Spike said as he sat on the wet ground. "She killed herself off. Sasha is Buffy."

"How did you pull it off?" Angel frowned. The kind of planning to fake her own death was something that he would have thought beyond his old girlfriend.

"With help from the Immortal and my father," she replied with a look that said she knew what he was really asking.

"Hank," a surprised Angel asked.

"No, her real father. Some Russian guy according Joyce's letter," Spike said as he slowly stood up. "Ivan?"

"Illya," Sasha corrected as she reflexively touched a locket on one of her necklaces. "His one gift to me was a nifty little amulet. It allows me to hide from the Council. And that reminds me, any word on Wes?"

A rattle from the chain-link fence at the end of the alley alerted the group to a new presence. Illyria remained perched on the fence for a moment before jumping down to stand next to Angel.

"Wesley is dead," the Old One said tonelessly. "I'm feeling grief for him. I can't seem to control it. I wish to do more violence."

"Well, wished just happen to be horses today," Spike said as the sound of a noisy crowd became evident even to human ears.

"Among other things," Angel added. "Illyria, meet..."

"Sasha," the slayer formerly known as Buffy said.

"More muck," Illyria sneered.

"I've been called worse. We can sort out the insults later," Sasha said as she nodded towards the demon horde at the head of the alley. And holy crap, was that a dragon overhead?

Humanity's defenders took up defense positions.

"Okay Blue, you take out the 30,000 on the left," Gunn said without a trace of irony.

"What the rest of the plan?" Spike asked Angel.

"We fight."

"Bit more specific."

"Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon," Angel quipped as the demon horde attacked. "Let's go to work."

Sasha rolled her eyes as she waded into battle along side her two former lovers and their friends.

Seconds into the battle, Sasha grabbed sword off of one her kills. Not bad she thought as she thrust it into a demon. It slid back out easily. She swung it to the left, decapitating something orange. Not bad at all.

"You know, that Scythe that Spike told me about would probably come in handy right about now," Angel said as he fought a four-armed thing off to her right.

"Pretty sure that would have clued Willow in to what was going on," Sasha said ducking to avoid a clumsy blow aimed at her head. She disemboweled her would-be killer, his entrails landing on her pant leg. "Eww, why do they have to be so messy when they die?"

"Guess they're just inconsiderate," Spike said as he stabbed particularly scaly demon. His sword got trapped in the scales and Spike just picked up the demon and threw it back into its fellow creatures. His face slipped into vampire mode and he began ripping out the throats of whatever came within reach.

The battle continued for more than an hour but less than two. Gunn was the first to go down with a sword lodged in his back, severing his spine. Angel was next. The Irish vampire was killed by the dragon his ashes mixing with the alley's muddy rainwater. The dragon died moments as Illyria leapt onto its back and twisted its head off. A troll took out Sasha. A single blow to her blindside sent her flying into the side of the Hyperion with enough force to partially bring down a wall on her. Distracted, Spike was decapitated before he could avenge her. In the end, it was the God King that saved the world, a world infested by muck. As she worked her way through horde she could see portal that they had disgorged them. As the last demon died, she took one last look around at the devastation surrounding her.

"It is not sufficient," she thought. "I wish to do more violence."

She stepped through the portal.

Seven and half minutes later, the portal disappeared.

Sixteen minutes after that, a small hand emerged from the rubble.

**Four months later, Los Angeles**

Sasha walked into the lobby of the rehab center where her friend was waiting with a small bag of his personal belongings on his lap.

"So, ready to get out of this place?"

"Hell yes."

Her eyes clouded. "Let's just try for a yes. I think we've both had enough of hell for this lifetime."

"Amen to that," Gunn said from his wheelchair as he began to push himself towards the door.

"Let me," Sasha said as she moved behind him. "We've got a long trip ahead of us."


End file.
